Fractional CFO And Maverick Matt Putra Shares How To Grow Profits And Increase Enterprise Value (#252)

Welcome to the Deep Wealth Podcast where you learn how to extract your business and personal Deep Wealth.I'm your host Jeffrey Feldberg.This podcast is brought to you by Deep Wealth and the90-day Deep Wealth Experience.When it comes to your business deep wealth,your exit or liquidity event is the most important financial decision of your life.But unfortunately,up to90%of liquidity events fail.Think about all that time and your hard earned money wasted.Of the quote unquote"successful"liquidity events,most business owners leave50%to over100%of the deal value in the buyer's pocket and don't even know it.I should know.I said"no"to a seven-figure offer.And"yes"to mastering the art and the science of a liquidity event.Two years later,I said"yes"to a different buyer with a nine figure deal.Are you thinking about an exit or liquidity event?Don't become a statistic and make the fatal mistake of believing the skills that built your business are the same ones to sell it.After all,how can you master something you've never done before?Let the90-day Deep Wealth Experience and the9-step roadmap of preparation help you capture the best deal instead of any deal.At the end of this episode,take a moment and hear from business owners like you,who went through the Deep Wealth Experience.Matt Putra is a Chief Financial Officer experienced in scaling,transforming,and financing small and medium sized e-commerce businesses.Matt helps the owners of e-commerce brands and agencies in the US,Canada,Austria,and the UK scale their businesses with more cash and less stress.As a fractional CFO and an active e-commerce investor,Matt knows what it takes to both minimize risk and optimize for growth.Welcome to the Deep Wealth Podcast,and for all you listeners and business owners,founders,entrepreneurs,you name it.I have a rhetorical question for you.Would you like to scale and grow your business?Would you like to have more cash,less stress,more success?And of course you said yes.Great news.That's what today's episode is all about.We have a very special guest.Matt,Welcome to the Deep Wealth Podcast.And Matt,I'm curious because there's always a story behind the story.So Matt,what's your story?What got you to where you are today?

When I was early,as I finishing high school and everything,I wanted to be a doctor and I started off in sciences and I absolutely hated it.And so from there,I had no idea what I wanted to do.So I ended up going to this local manufacturer sweeping the floors.And what I learned very quickly is I love business,I love management.And so I just rose up through the ranks there.And I ended up as an operations manager.So nothing special,right?And then at some point I was like,you know,I want to do finance.And so I,switched my degree and my focus and I moved into finance and accounting.And then I went to another local manufacturer in an accounting role.And in that role I just,helped them make a lot more money have a lot more cash.So when I was there,we increased our gross profit by25%over the course of two years.Increased net profit by about20%over the course of two years.And it was there that I realized the power for good that a good accountant can have.And so from there I went to an accounting firm and got fully trained and all that,and then I became a C F O of a private equity group.And,you know,managing cash flow,doing deals,helping investees,portfolio management,audit,tax,everything.and I loved the job,loved it.And I got you know,manage a bit through Covid when I was there.And then when Covid happened I got my commute time back.So I was commuting about three hours a day,back and forth to my home.And when Covid started.got those three hours back and I just started doing some consulting on the side.And loved it,loved that I could have a really big impact for a small price tag for small businesses.And so,about six months later,I told the group that I was gonna be leaving,Six months after that fully doing this.And so I've been doing it ever since March,2021.And again,just helping business owners in the us,UK,and Canada just grow their businesses and not have the cashflow stress ideally.

Wow.Matt,what a journey.And there's always two sides to a coin.So firstly,with the pandemic,I'm gonna speak for both of us,I'm sure you're with me on this.Our heart sell to the people who lost loved ones or businesses from the pandemic.A terrible situation trying to find the silver lining.We don't really have much of a choice,so trying to find the silver lining.It's incredible world class talent like yourself through the push and technology that we had,that you can now make yourself available in ways that couldn't be done before as a fractional cfo.And so Matt,I would be remiss if I didn't ask this question.We're gonna talk all about you being a cfo,but before we get there,you're on the other side of the table.For most of our community,being in private equity,you're looking at the deals.You may have even looked at some of our communities businesses,are we gonna buy this company?Are we not gonna buy this company?And so,Matt,oftentimes you're never a prophet in your hometown.And I say these things and I'm sure the listeners nod and they smile.Okay,yeah,Jeffrey,sounds good.Whatever.So for our listeners benefit,Matt,let's say two scenarios when you were looking at the numbers,the data,the financials,the narrative of a company,and you're looking to potentially buy that company.So let's take the glass as half empty and then we'll go to the glass half full.What would have you and your private equity group walk away from the table?So this is where you're going back to the team saying,you know what?We're better off taking a pass on this because of this.What is this?

There's a few things.So one big one is gross margin,less than50%,and it's just tough to scale,tough to acquire customers,tough to scale,tough to make an impact.And it is possible when you have high volumes and massive scale.But that's not where we played.And so if it was less than50%,typically we wouldn't continue the conversation.Other thing we're looking for is lists.So if the email and SMS list size is not very big,if it's quite small,that's something that we wouldn't really be looking at.Cuz again,we want to have that owned list.We want to have those customer touchpoints.So that was one.

And Matt,while you're thinking,may I ask,so were there particular industries that you were focusing on specifically?I mean with SMS list and email list to me that I'm gonna guess,but to me that sounds more in maybe SAS based businesses or high tech.What would be going on with that?

For the PE group and I'm still tangentially a part of it,we were looking at e-commerce businesses and specifically in the outdoor and apparel and gear space.

Interesting.Okay.

For this,model here.So we wanna have lists,and they don't have to be massive,but we want to have some lists,right?Because again we were doing this right around when Covid happened,and so then iOS happened and so then,the focus came back to building lists and it's changed a bit again now.But yeah,no,that was a huge focus for us.What we didn't wanna see is one big flash in the pan jump in annual revenues.We wanted to see either like a steady progression or something steady,right?So we just didn't wanna see the big covid bump.And that was the only reason your someone's sales might have been quite high.That's one thing we looked at.And the other thing for us was more than10%.Not profit.Now.I know that's a nice ask,but again,that was just our model.There are those acquirers that will look for people that are less or maybe even in a bit of trouble,and that's just something that we didn't want to do.Those were the main things.

Sure.And I suppose we could take what you said and reverse that of what you were looking for.That said,though,when you're looking at a business to acquire,what would have you go back to the team and say,okay,you know what?This particular deal has my blessings because of this.What would that be?

Yeah,so definitely the reverse things.So more than10%profit,better than50%gross margin..And other things I would say is a unique brand.We didn't wanna buy a drop shipping companies,we wanted something where their customers had an affiliation with the brand,like the image,maybe not the logo per se,but the brand was doing something that the customers enjoyed and could communicate with them.Other things were L t V.So we'd want something,maybe two to three times more than a o v.The better the gross margin,the more we're willing to pay,right?So there's that70%gross margin is great when you can get it,60%.The other thing is multichannel.We were looking at things where they did e-commerce maybe,or Amazon or both,or wholesale or other marketplaces,like fair or target some of those.So we ideally like to have something that had more than one channel.Just cuz again,reli on one channel has a lot of risks sometimes.

Sure.And you know what?Whether you're a retail business,online business,manufacturing business,Matt,the takeaway here is,hey,be resilient.Don't have your eggs all in one basket.

Exactly.Yes.

We can go down a whole other rabbit hole,what you're talking about in our nine step Deep Wealth roadmap.We talk about that in step two,X-Factors,and step four,the due diligence side of things.But let's put that off to the side because that's another story for another time.Matt,this is all about you today and so let's fast forward to today.I'm wondering with your CFO background and your experience in the marketplace of what makes a company tick.So today you're helping businesses grow and scale and prosper,and you're focusing on the cash side of things.So what's your secret sauce?What's going on here as a business owner?I come to you,Matt,I heard you on the Deep Wealth podcast.Hey,let's give it a go.Can you help us?What does that mean exactly?What does that look like?

So the very first thing that we do,and this forms the linchpin of what we do for people is we make a financial model.Now,maybe sounds boring,but it's a forecast three to five years out over time,income statement,cash flow,balance sheet.But it's so,so,so important,and here's why.People may have seen forecasts built by their accountants or other folks like that,but we build ours based on economic reality.So we take the inputs you give us,and then we apply our own knowledge to it.So for example,what you might do,sometimes people who are looking to sell or raise money,they'll go and they'll find someone to build a model and that person will just accept inputs and just do what the person asks them to do in terms of sales and margins and all these things.What we do is if someone says we're gonna grow50%year over year,I'm gonna say you might do that one or two years in a row,but you're not gonna keep doing that.And They might say well,gross margins are gonna be70%forever.And I'm gonna say,maybe.But as you add a wholesale channel or a target or marketplace,you're gonna see some compression.And especially as the competitor pressures come in,you're gonna see some compression in your margins.So I'm gonna take what you give me,and I'm gonna apply my own knowledge and our team's knowledge to this as well.And so what you're going to have is something that's achievable and as close to realistic as you can get.And the reason we do that is because we want to know where could the potential problems be.I had one client join me.They said,look,we're doing Amazon.We have one product where it's gonna be awesome,then we're gonna add two more.And when I built their model,I said,you're gonna go bankrupt.And they said,why?I was like well,this assumption I don't think is gonna hold true,and this assumption has some problems with it.And if this keeps going this way,you're just gonna run outta money.We've been working with them for probably about a year and a half,and we're starting now to break even month on month.We've sourced a new manufacturer,and so they're headed toward the right side of profitability now.But along the meantime,we've helped them find funding.Financing.We've helped them manage their supply chain.We've helped them forecast how to purchase and when to purchase and when to pull back on Amazon and when to go f and when they say,Hey,I found the new agency that we help interview the agency.We input into the forecast.Here's how much the agency's gonna cost.Here's how much agency should bring you in sales.And then we do a downside.If they don't do the sales,how much time do you have with them before you should stop using them?Things like that.We're using this model all the time.The biggest reason why,number one,don't get into cashflow problems.That's the first thing that I'm looking for.Every client that I work with,I meet them every single month or sometimes more than once a month,and I'm taking what I hear from them,oh,hey,we're trying this thing.Oh,we're gonna try this agency.Oh,we have a new sales channel.And as they're talking,I'm putting this information into the forecast and I'm trying to see what it tells me.Is there gonna be a cash flow problem?Is there gonna be a margin problem?And once it shows me one,then I can help them figure out what we're gonna do about it,whether we do the thing or we don't do the thing or we modify the thing.So that's the biggest piece that we do.

And for our listeners,what's so nice about this,and it's a beautiful blending.And I'll put this out there,Matt,tell me if you think I'm off base.Private equity companies love them or hate them.They're some of the most successful,the most valuable and profitable companies on the planet.Bar none.And if you're saying,you know Jeffrey well,not really.You know,Because Amazon and Google well,who's behind Amazon and Google,it's private equity.So the discipline that private equity brings to the table.He is world class.It's like none other.And so for our listeners,when you have a fractional CFO like Matt,who's been on the other side of the table,he's now applying that discipline to your business.Wow.And for our listeners who,Matt,they're listening to you talk and they're saying,Matt,you lost me at that first financial word.I can't even remember it.I don't know even what it starts with.They're saying well,you don't have to know everything as a business owner.That's why you want to hire people smarter than you in specific areas so that you can work on the business and have Matt and team work in the business just taking it to the next level.So,Matt,let me ask you this.When you begin to work with clients,what are you seeing as their.I'm gonna say80%of the problems are probably coming from20%of the same root cause from one business to the other.So as business owners,don't shoot the messenger here.Where are we dropping the ball?Where are we just not getting it right?What are you seeing?

Yeah I would say one of the biggest mistakes that I see is adding too many fixed costs too soon,and that's in the form of hires,software,rent.Tools,agencies,all those things.I mean,You need a bunch of that stuff to get going.But what I see happening is people have a few good months and then add some fixed costs,and then the few good months might be a season,but now they're stuck with the fixed costs,or at least they hold onto them too long.A rule of thumb is that every dollar fixed cost requires four to$5of revenue to cover it

Wow.That's huge.

Yeah.And so when you add a dollar,just know you gotta work that much harder to cover it.And so just be careful adding dollars.And the people that I see that are the most stressed are typically the ones with the highest fixed costs,to be very honest.And there's a lot of ways we can work on that.

And so on paper it sounds Oh,so easy,Matt.Just don't put it fixed cost.In reality,obviously,from what you're saying,in reality,that's not quite the case.So with that in mind,What kind of tips can you give our community of,okay,when it comes to fixed costs?I know you're tempted,but hey,here's a few ways to avoid that.

The first thing and the hardest thing is just to be prepared to work really hard for a while I,I eat my own,Porridge,so to speak.With my business,I've been very late in adding other staff and it's meant that I've worked a lot of evenings,a lot of weekends,get up early,work late but it's just because I don't want that stress.I'd rather have the stress of working really hard than stress of managing my own cashflow.So just work really hard.Be prepared for that.Few other really core ways virtual assistance where you have an agency where you can buy buckets of hours per month.That's a fantastic way to do customer service.Some video editing,social media editing,those kind of things are really great ways to do that.The next thing after that is offshore staff members.I think a lot of people still are worried about quality of offshore staff,but I tell you,it's the one of the best things that I've ever done.Most of my team is either in Argentina or in the Philippines.They're brilliant in some ways.They're smarter than I am.They have world class experience.They're motivated,they're brilliant.And I suggest to everybody that there are a bunch of key areas in your business that you can have offshore help.One is the accounting team.So if you ever need to hire an accountant,hire somebody from the Philippines,they're wonderful accountants.They're brilliant,motivated,and they work on your time zone.You can do digital teams,you can build them.So that's video editing,social media,editing,all these things,customer service teams.I just did a deep dive on a competitor of a client of mine,so I won't say the name,they are likely multi nine figure company,and I've done a whole org chart analysis of them,and they have more than half their team are offshore.There's another very known luggage brand where a lot of their team is offshore as well.So the whole CX team could be offshore customer experience team digital,your web dev team.Can be in India,there have a lot of good web developers there.You can also have performance marketing folks again offshore.So that's a huge one from there.You go up to fractional people.So like myself,like a CMO a strategic growth marketer,you can find me a cfo.There's other CFOs too that do this.Fractionally.You could look at marektinghire.com for a fractional marketing executive.And then from there,really it's just delay fixed costs.There are some strategic things you can do,but otherwise just delay your fixed costs,spend the money on growth for sure.Wait until the growth appears,it stabilizes,and then at a fixed cost to manage it.And until then,do it with virtually or fractionally or just work really hard for a few months until you stabilize the growth,

So,wow,what a game changer from what you're sharing here.So what I'm hearing you say,Matt,is.Hey,when it comes to fixed costs,more around the people side,I guess the first thing that you're saying is,do you really need a full-time person for starters?And if the answer is no,okay you don't have to have someone physically in the office anymore.We know that post covid,maybe it makes you feel better.It doesn't mean that they're doing any better of a job in a full-time position when it could be a part-time position.And then what I'm hearing you say is perhaps you can find your talent offshore.Where I,suspect we have the currency exchange is what's really making a difference on top of a lower cost of living in some of these other countries.You're getting tremendous talent.

In some cases you will pay a third what you'd pay for North American or European talent.If you look on Latin America would be maybe half.Sometimes Philippines in some cases a third,and you're getting like as good or better talent,I would say.You do have to figure out how to manage the training and cultural differences,but from my point of view,it's a really fantastic way to do things.

And just before we move on from this,has there been any downsides or adjustments,I'll call them as you go,with the strategy of having talent all around the world,anything that you can care to share?

Yeah,of course.I mean,One tough thing is time zones,right?So if you want the best of the best talent from offshore,you do need to let them work on their own proper time zone.You can imagine that a successful person in another country would want to work like regular daytime hours in their time.So if you want the best of the best,you have to do that.If you're willing to have still a level talent maybe not a plus,but whatever.Then you can ask them to work on your time zone.And a lot of people in the Philippines are,are used to that.The other downside is,if you're in a country or a state where the time zone changes fallback spring forward,that gets very tricky for me in Vancouver,Canada,fallback.Spring forward are both times where I miss meetings a bunch of times our team meeting has to get shifted around.So that's been a bit of a paint.The other thing,and this kind of depends on someone's sort of emotional intelligence,is the cultural differences in communication.It's a really important to know that they're there and really important to understand them.Just because again,you might find yourself,if you're very direct,you might hurt someone's feelings or vice versa.So that's something that's important to know about.I haven't had much in the way of translation issues.Again,my team is fantastic.We don't have the minor word here and there we're not,we have to clarify what we mean by the word,but typically it's been fine.And I have team members that interface with my clients sometimes without me for long periods of time.So I think I'm not worried about that one.The other one is payment systems is something to figure out typically.We use wise.com.To pay our staff using deal.com,like that global staffing infrastructure thing.What I found with that was that from paycheck to one of my staff members receiving their payment was like five to seven days.And so just really not optimal for them.So we stopped using the platform for that reason.And then finding the talent,of course,can be tough,right?If you don't know how to recruit,you have to figure that out.We're starting to do some of that for people now.But there are recruiters in some countries you can use.You can also do LinkedIn ads,but there's some things you need to do to make sure you get the right people.

Wow.What a Wealth of information that's there.Thank you so much for sharing that.And so Matt,we covered some fixed expenses,some strategies of what not to do.Hey,you don't necessarily need full-time,and if you're looking,why not expand your selection of talent and go offshore and just get some world-class talent with that.So let's flip it now.When a company comes to you,they're doing all the right things.All the cylinders are firing,they're growing,they have scale going.The cash is flowing in.What have you done and what are they doing from working with you to make it work?So this is some of your secret sauce here now that we're talking about.

Yeah.So when someone comes to me and there aren't fires burning,the question is,look,we want to keep the train moving and we just don't want to derail it.And sometimes There's a fork in the road,which one should we take?They ask me.Right?So that's what we do when everything's going well.So first thing is we put in kind of reporting rhythms,metrics maybe it's OKRs that we use,but we want to keep the train or the ship in the right direction.And so we use reporting to do that.We want to have weekly,monthly,sometimes daily reporting,which we use.We're triple whale partners,so we use triple whale for e-commerce people,if it's not that we use other things.That's a big one.And the other one is where is this all going?So because we work.Not necessarily globally,but we work with people in a bunch of different countries.We worked with a whole bunch of e-commerce folks.We sort of have an idea of what's working for people.So how do you take appropriate bets?And so this is something that we're now working on with people is when you looking at taking a risk on something,how do you quantify the upside downside?How do you mitigate your risk?How do you take the bet appropriately?At what point when you start,is there kill point where if it's not working,you stop the bet?Right?So that's a big thing for companies that are doing it well is just to help them keep doing it well and make appropriate bets without betting the farm or losing too much money or that kind of thing.And in fact,one of my clients is in this position,everything's going awesome.They're like,we wanna grow300%over the next three years.Just help us make sure we don't mess it up.And that's what we're doing.

Terrific.So300%,a hundred percent a year for three years,300%.If I'm doing the math right,I gotta be careful.I'm with the CFO here,so Matt,how do you do that?What's going on?I mean,That's huge in terms of growth.

Yeah.So for them we're looking at what are the sales channels that make sense?Is it wholesale,is it Amazon?What is it?What are we gonna do?then when you approach the sales channel,how do you approach it?Do you do it yourself?Do you hire a director?When should the director pay for themselves?Who should you find from?Where should you find them?And sometimes it's look,if you can get into a really big account,sometimes you don't do it when that account asks you to do it.Because what you don't wanna do is get into a big account and mess it up.So then it's is your supply chain there to support this account?Do you have the staff available to support this account?So that's what we're doing,right,is we're helping them figure out what to do,when to do it.And it's,quarterly goal planning.Monthly reviews,weekly check-ins,things like that,just to make sure everything's going in the right direction and staying in the right direction.

So,Matt,what's interesting is more than just forecasts and numbers and projections.You're really getting into the trenches.You were talking strategy,growth strategy,sales,strategy,what can go wrong?Let's find those skeletons,let's prevent them.So you're doing that and a whole lot more am I correct with that?

Yes,for sure.A good CFO you know,is not just an accountant,right?A good C F O is a business partner and one that is really rooting for the owner or owners and look,you're gonna tell me where you want the ship to go and I'm gonna help you point it in that direction,make sure it has enough fuel,make sure the right people are on board.And then look,you know,is there a log in the way?How do you get around it?A good CFO does all of those things.

And let me ask you this,and I suppose you could easily say,and you'd be right,the question I'm gonna ask is,you know,Jeffrey,every company is different.It all depends.Generally speaking though,knowing that there's gonna be some on either side of this.Most companies,when they're coming to you,Matt,they need help otherwise they wouldn't be there,and you step in and you begin to turn things around.How long does that process take back of the envelope,generally speaking?

If there are troubles,I would say probably takes six to nine to start getting out of the

Mm-hmm.

Yeah,that makes sense.And then probably about,it takes about three months to have a clear path to know where we're gonna go.Six to nine months is you start like taking steps and you start to see the improvements.

Terrific.So a little bit of a timeline there,and let me ask you this.It's one of my favorite questions to ask outside of my favorite question when we do the wrap up.We're not quite there yet,though.As we sit and talk here today,artificial intelligence,ai,it's in the headlines every day.It's growing by leaps and bounds,and I suspect by the time this podcast airs,it's already changed.So what we're talking about today may even be obsolete and out of date.But that said,where's the biggest impact in your world,Matt,of where AI has really made a difference?And then if you had to fast forward six or12months,where do you see it heading?

Oh man.So one big one is the customer intelligence.So,a use case I've heard of recently,which I like is piping all your reviews.Back to chat g p t and assess.For mood,for common themes,for common problems,for common benefits,and then crafting landing pages based off of like massive amounts of customer feedback.So that's a really good use case.One that I've done is when I have phone calls with people who might wanna work together with me.The call's recorded.I will put the transcript into chat PT and just double check what I understood and what I heard.Say,Hey,what did they think?What's the mood?What do they want?When they wanna hear from me.And it's actually pretty amazing the you get.Like I had a response from chat PT saying this person wanted these three things,but email them in10days because they're doing something in those interim10days,so you shouldn't bother them.it's very powerful.

And Matt,let me ask you that if before you,you move into the next one,I mean,that's fascinating what I've seen when it comes to chat,g p T and ai.It's the quality of the question that you ask.Makes sense.Garbage in.Garbage out,or gold in gold out.So what exactly are you asking it?What's a specific question when you're saying,okay,chat,g p t,here is the transcript of an interview I just had with somebody,or a client conversation.What's the specific question that you're now asking?

Yeah,I am asking something like,please act like a VP of sales whose focus is to move this potential client a little bit closer to where they might consider working with us.And I'll say please give me the mood of the conversation and it'll do that.Please give me the three pain points.This person.You feel like they had please give me some of the words you might use to address the pain points.Those are some of the things that I do with it on a regular basis.

Wow.It's crazy that it can really do that.And because when you read something on paper,you're not hearing the emotionality of what's going on or.I deliberately pause right there for effect that doesn't come through either in the transcript.So because it's just reading what's on the page,which can be easily misinterpreted,even for a human to read it,you can come out very different as to not being there and hearing that.So how accurate is it based on what you've seen from reading the transcript verbatim,you know,word for word,what's there to saying,okay,Matt,here's my assessment of what's going on.

Pretty good actually.There was one in particular that I'm thinking of when I asked the questions.I went back and I read through the transcript,cause I used like a note taker,right?And so I read the transcript and listened to a bunch of parts of it.It classified the pain points the same way that I would have just did it faster.And then when I combine a whole bunch of calls into one input,it does a fairly good job of classifying what I would say are people's pain points and which we just did that recently.

Terrific.And let me ask you for our listeners,for their benefit,is there any particular note taking or transcribing tool that you're using,or are they all the same,more or less?We don't have to give a commercial here for any of these companies,but is there any one that you found that's better than the other,or are they're all fairly good?

So I currently use Otter otter.ai or otter.com.I don't know.And I think I'm gonna move to the.Fireflies Otter does not have an api.You can connect to chat g b t fireflies does.So if I use fireflies and I have my own instance in which chat,g b t is not gonna take the information I give it and use it publicly,I can connect fireflies to chat G P T and then I can ask it questions probably on the fly as it's ingesting live ish till fireflies is my recommendation right now.

What a different world it is with AI and how it is changing anything.It absolutely is.And,so you're speaking about today of how you're putting AI into the mix from prospects to hiring to everything else.So based on what you've seen,and I know it's still early days,we're entering the golden era of ai.Matt,what are you seeing,best guess,six months,12months from now?What does that look like?

If I look at this from the financial services point of I would say that there are gonna be entry level tools people can use.So a ai C F O is my guess.And it's gonna be okay.It's not gonna be But someone that doesn't have a big budget could probably use that and then just connect with a partner here.And there maybe is probably one thing that might happen.We're like Product or brands.The other thing that I would say that's gonna happen is again,just the amount of customer data that's gonna get piped into Q P T is huge.And so your teams are gonna function better.Your chat box,chat bots are gonna function better.You're gonna be able to give unbelievable service for the brands that really embrace it.And what I mean by that is like this.So someone chats you on your site.G P T will know what they bought from you,what they've said before,what their reviews were,and so they're gonna say,Hey,I just question about this product.The person who's responding,whether it's the bot first or not,if it's a person,G P T will pull up a list of things that they bought and when they bought them and what they said last time.They said,oh,hey Angela.I know you reached out three months ago and you bought this thing.How was the thing and how can I help you today?And just the care that you're gonna be able to give to people.I think it's gonna be a big differentiator.There are other things.People smarter than I am will have other ideas and stuff,but I think one of the big things that I see is the amount of care and that you'll be able to show people is gonna be astronomical.

Wow.Sounds exciting,scary,all at

Yeah.Yeah,that too.

all that goes.And so Matt,big picture wise,we're talking about how you can find those skeletons in the closet for these companies,remove them,help them grow,get out there,scale,ramp up profits and cash.We could probably go down so many different rabbit holes here,but are there any questions that I should have asked that I didn't?Anything that you would wanna add to the conversation at this point?

You know,The only thing I'll add is a bit about financing and I'll just say on that point People do your best to avoid financing that's tied to revenue.Like the repayments where they're like a percentage of revenue or a percentage of daily sales or those things,they're really hard to get out of a cycle of using those.So if you can get things that are called term loans,which is where someone gives you money.And you have a certain set time period of equal payments to pay it off.Those are typically the best way to use debt and get out of using debt.The ones where they're tied to revenue,the money didn't get sucked back so fast that you have to take a new loan right away.So that's one that I would say on financing.I talk a lot about it on LinkedIn,so if you follow me there DM me or comment on one of my posts,then we can go over it.

Terrific.And you know what,that's such a really a potential skeleton.When we start going down,you have interest payments and then vulnerabilities.You can have a call.So I really like what you're saying there.And one other question before we go into wrap up mode.So it's safe to say now we're clearly past the pandemic.What's the biggest change,Matt,that you've seen?Or perhaps it's still ongoing from pre pandemic to post pandemic?If it had to be one or two things,what would that be?

Yeah,in-person stuff is coming back I wasn't sure yet if I liked that,cuz remote has been so nice.But it's actually been really great to meet people and connect with people.People are shopping in person again,which is good and bad for e-commerce sellers.But you know,I would say that's coming back in a way that.I wasn't sure that it would,so that's been really nice.What else has changed?We're still dealing with economic fallout,so that's been tough.Banks have been very tight Overall.E economy VCs,everybody has shifted to profit focused.And so again,that puts pressures on business owners,where it's harder to keep up with the change in sentiment.Sentiment can change quickly,but to then re-pivot the business takes time.And so that's been one that's created a lot of problems is the access to financing lenders that we're normally full on,ready to give you money are now declining or taking a very long time to do so?

And it goes back to your point earlier of using different instruments to fund the business.And I'm old school.I would definitely not be a friend of yours.In your days at pe at least in the early days,I'm a big fan of bootstrapping and cockroach startups,wrote articles about that.That's how I ran my company.But listen to each his or her own.There's no right or wrong as whatever works best for you.Well,Matt,listen,we're at that point where we need to start wrapping up.You've been a Wealth of information.Absolutely love that.And have a fun question for you.Let me set this up.So I want you to think of the movie Back to the Future,and in the movie you have that magical DeLorean car that can take you to any point in time.So Matt,here's the fun part,is tomorrow morning you look outside your window and not only is a DeLorean car,curbside door is open and it's waiting for you to hop on in.So you hop in and you're now gonna go to any point in your life,Matt,as a young child,a teenager,whatever point in time that would be,why are you telling your younger self for life wisdom or life lessons or,Hey Matt,do this,but don't do that.What would that sound like?

I would have spoken to23year old Matt,who just got married

Okay.

And I would've told him to travel more.I would've told him to travel more and start a business earlier with the two things.

And if I may ask,what's with the travel more and starting the business earlier,what's the rationale behind that?

So from19to28,I worked in one job local.This is the manufacturer.And so it was good for a while,but I think that,Seeing different places in the world.I mean,We're doing it now,which is great.37now,so we're traveling with the kids and everything.But I think that there's a lot of beauty in traveling the world and seeing other cultures and learning languages and eating new foods.I just love the beauty of travel and I think my wife and I should have just done it more and then starting the business,I think,again,I waited till I was5,34,whatever it was to start this business.It's been wonderful.And I think,again,I would've started just a bit sooner trying different things,

Awesome.Terrific insights and wisdom,Matt,and what a great way to wrap up what's been an absolutely wonderful interview and what makes a terrific episode.And Matt,for our listeners who wanna learn more about you,they have questions,they wanna become a client,they just wanna reach out.Where's the best place online that someone can find you?

Yeah,two places you can go to my website,which is ax.co e i g h,tx dot c o.And then you can check out my LinkedIn.So just Matt Putra.Look me up on LinkedIn.If you wanna just connect and just chat.No pressure.LinkedIn is a great way to do that.I try to post almost every day and I answer a lot of comments and a lot of dms.And a lot of times people say,Hey look,I have a question.Can we jump on a call?I do a ton of that stuff too.So if you want like a no pressure way to connect LinkedIn's great.If you wanna jump right to a phone call,you can go to my site and book me from there.Yeah,those are the best ways.

Terrific.For our listeners,it won't get any easier.It's a point and click go to the show notes.Everything is there,Matt,we've got you covered.We've got you on all the social that you have and everything else,so it can't be any easier.Well,Matt,it's a wrap.It's official.You're absolutely wonderful,and as we say here at Deep Wealth,may you continue to thrive and prosper while you stay healthy and safe.Thank you so much.

Thank you.This was great.

The Deep Wealth Experience was definitely a game-changer for me.

This course is one of the best investments you will ever make because you will get an ROI of a hundred times that.Anybody who doesn't go through it will lose millions.

If you don't have time for this program,you'll never have time for a successful liquidity

It was the best value of any business course I've ever taken.The money was very well spent.

Compared to when we first began,today I feel better prepared,but in some respects,may be less prepared,not because of the course,but because the course brought to light so many things that I thought we were on top of that we need to fix.

I100%believe there's never a great time for a business owner to allocate extra hours into his or her week or day.So it's an investment that will yield results today.I thought I will reap the benefit of this program in three to five years down the road.But as soon as I stepped forward into the program,my mind changed immediately.

There was so much value in the experience that the time I invested paid back so much for the energy that was expended.

The Deep Wealth Experience compared to other programs is the top.What we learned is very practical.Sometimes you learn stuff that it's great to learn,but you never use it.The stuff we learned from Deep Wealth Experience,I believe it's going to benefit us a boatload.

I've done an executive MBA.I've worked for billion-dollar companies before.I've worked for smaller companies before I started my business.I've been running my business successfully now for getting close to a decade.We're on a growth trajectory.Reflecting back on the Deep Wealth,I knew less than10%what I know now,maybe close to1%even.

Hands down the best program in which I've ever participated.And we've done a lot of different things over the years.We've been in other mastermind groups,gone to many seminars,workshops,conferences,retreats,read books.This was so different.I haven't had an experience that's anything close to this in all the years that we've been at this.It's five-star,A-plus.

I would highly recommend it to any super busy business owner out there.Deep Wealth is an accurate name for it.This program leads to deeper wealth and happier wealth,not just deeper wealth.I don't think there's a dollar value that could be associated with such an experience and knowledge that could be applied today and forever.

Are you leaving millions on the table?Please visit www.deepwealth.com/success to learn more.If you're not on my email list,you'll want to be.Sign up at www.deepwealth.com/podcast.And if you enjoyed this episode,if it added value,if you walked away with some new insights and strategies,please leave a review on your favorite podcast channel.Reviews help us reach new listeners,grow the show.And continue to create content that you'll enjoy and as we wrap up this episode as always please stay healthy and safe.